Episode 35: Enabling Better Productivity through Better Culture with Kevin Oakes

Kevin Oakes

Kevin is the CEO and founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), the leading human capital research company in the world. Focusing on the people practices of high-performance organizations, i4cp leverages its vendor-free community to facilitate next practices in human capital.

Recap & Takeaways

• [00:11 – 00:25] Introduction
• [00:32 – 03:16] Kevin Oakes and i4cp, The Institute for Corporate Productivity
• [03:20 – 04:01] Culture Fitness —Studying the elements of a healthy culture vs a toxic culture
• [04:08 – 06:50] Approaching culture from the top down in the current labor market and shortage
• [06:54 – 11:18] The blueprint of Kevin’s book, Culture Renovation: tools for change
• [11:21 – 12:42] Organizational network analysis
• [12:44 – 15:03] Digitizing influencers at work into bots, and automating work
• [14:00 – 15:50] Easier to automate mundane work, shifting time to influencers for culture
• [15:57 – 19:20] Measuring culture initiatives progress and work streams
• [19:21 – 22:17] Business metrics and the idea of revenue per employee
• [22:17 – 23:23] The current economic impact on tech businesses, layoffs, and ranking
• [23:27 – 27:18] How companies living in an opportunity-rich moment for culture learning, mobility, and succession planning are implementing change and programs
• [27:19 – 29:45] Measuring friction in organizations
• [29:50 – 31:23] A vendor-free community
• [31:27 – 32:37] Team building and the weight on culture ambassadors’ shoulders
• [32:39 – 33:23] Storytelling from a leader
• [33:23 – 35:14] Micro culture should have slight variations on overall culture, but not completely deviate
• [35:15 – 36:20] Gary Ridge, former CEO of WD-40 on high-performing teams
• [36:26 – 39:22] Mobility and seeing supply chains boomerang back talent
• [39:24 – 40:20] Referral hires, checking in with past employees
• [40:26 – 42:47] Data will help you see, thoughts on productivity and flexibility